I had long been under the impression that Safeway killed off the China Express branding for their Chinese-food deli offerings in the Lifestyle era, so I was very surprised to see it reappear in this store! That's a bit of Safeway history that I had imagined was gone for good, especially after the Albertsons merger. It's also notable that the case next to it is advertising a "chicken dinner deal" rather than using the Albertsons "cheep cheep chicken" tagline -- that was used in Seattle Division Safeways for a while after the merger, but I haven't seen them use it for a while. I'm not sure what's up with the open case in the back holding whole deli meats and cheeses -- I've seen some Lifestyle-era Safeways with similar cases, but none of them seem to be in use any longer; perhaps there wasn't any room for a proper walk-in within the service area and this was their solution.
Interesting, this discussion has led to me pulling up the Safeway Seattle division ad, Portland division ad, and the Randall's ad. I know for sure that Safeway still uses the Cheep Chicken name in Portland because I saw it there and, indeed, it is in the Portland ad for this week ($5.99 for 8 pieces dark). Cheep Chicken day is Monday there, is it possible they only use it in Seattle on Cheep Chicken day?
ReplyDeleteCheep Chicken day in Houston has historically been on Fridays. I don't see it in the Randall's ad, but I think they still have the Cheep Chicken promotion and I think that goes back many years, before the Albertsons merger even.
The Seattle division ad has the Signature Select frozen pizzas (not to be confused for the Signature Deli ones, which are also in the ad, but at a higher price) for $3.97 after digital coupon. That's a pretty good deal and those pizzas are pretty good! I'm sure they'd be more at Randall's.
The Seattle division ad also mentions China Express so I guess the name is back in Seattle at least. I don't think Portland is using that name right now and, of course, we don't even have Chinese food at Randall's.
I don't think Portland had those flat bread pizzas. Certainly we don't at Randall's! It's interesting to see these photos because it offers a good look at the deli menu. That might not seem like anything special to you, but for those of us in Houston, the deli menu is quite amazing because none of our grocers have anything even remotely like that! We basically just have fried chicken and sandwiches, lol. Randall's fried chicken is more popular than Kroger's which also seemed to be the case in Portland when looking at Safeway/Albertsons vs. Fred Meyer. Nobody does cheep chicken quite like Safeway I suppose!
I know Cheep Chicken was historically a Monday thing dating back to the Albertsons era, so maybe they only put the signs out on Mondays now -- until recently they normally had the signs up all the time, but I don't know what they're doing these days. I know some stores do still have Cheep Chicken signs in place, but it's hard to tell if they're current or just a leftover. (At least around here, Cheep Chicken was originally an Albertsons promotion, not a Safeway one.)
DeleteThose frozen pizzas used to be really good, and I used to buy them quite frequently when I lived in my tiny apartment that didn't have enough of a kitchen for me to make food from scratch like I do these days, but sometime around 2019, Safeway switched suppliers and they became much less good. I wonder if they're still using the original good supplier in your area! Back then, you could normally get them for $2-3, but everything's so much more expensive these days.
All this China Express stuff is new in the past few months. It seems the Seattle Division is still experimenting with branding, and really emphasizing the Art of Fresh campaign that originally seemed like it was going to be replaced by the Sincerely stuff. I'm certainly not complaining -- anything beats those terrible puns!
This is the first store I've seen with flatbread pizzas like that. I need to try it some day -- not that they look all that great, but I always like trying out grocery store pizzas like this! Albertsons had pizza setups in several of their stores before the merger (and it was pretty good pizza... not good enough to justify the price they started charging for it a few years after it was introduced, though), but very few of those survived their closure waves throughout the 2010s, and I'm only aware of one that might be in operation in a store that converted to Safeway. Store-prepared sushi isn't particularly common either. Most Safeways just have sandwiches, chicken, and Chinese food, and a smaller selection of each of those than this store has. The exact selection varies from store to store, and has also varied quite a bit over time (a lot of the special elements larger/fancier stores got in the Lifestyle era were removed in the late 2010s), but this store has probably the largest prepared foods selection of any Seattle Division store!
As for fried chicken specifically, I haven't tried it from Safeway (or any other grocery chain for that matter), but I know quite a few people who like Safeway's fried chicken -- I've never heard anyone mention anything about Fred Meyer or QFC's offerings!
I asked an expert, someone who worked at a Randall's deli pre-Albertsons merger, and they said that they referred to the Cheep Chicken as being $5 Friday. I suppose then that the Cheep Chicken name came along post-merger, but yeah, Friday has historically been cheep chicken day around here!
DeleteHuh, I only started buying those Signature Select frozen pizzas around 2020 when I got a coupon for a free one and I quite liked it! It is better than the Kroger frozen rising crust pizza, but the Kroger one isn't bad either and it is generally a little bit cheaper. I only get the supreme ones so maybe that has some difference. I can't compare it to the older ones you're referring to, but I think they're pretty good. Maybe I'd think otherwise if I had better tasting ones before though!
Interesting - 5 Dollar Friday was the traditional Safeway thing, while Cheep Chicken Monday was the Albertsons one. They both carried on post-merger around here (and 5 Dollar Friday continues to this day), so it's interesting that they seem to have been combined into the same promotion at Randall's! 5 Dollar Friday is much broader in scope than Cheep Chicken -- originally, it included various deli and bakery items, and since the merger it's been expanded to include items from basically the entire store.
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